JRevieu's — G. A. Boulengerh Extinct Reptilia. 381 



act, is that of the old proverb, that " Birds of b. feather flock together." 

 But the evidence of identity is by no means conclusive, and it seems 

 hard, therefore, on Sir Richard Owen to wipe out his specific name 

 with a feather, he having been the original describer of the almost 

 entire skeleton. 



Too much praise cannot be accorded to the Trustees of the British 

 Museum, Natural History, for authorizing the publication of the 

 long series of Catalogues of Eecent and Fossil forms, in the Collec- 

 tions under their control, and we earnestly trust that the work may 

 be continued until all the groups, both of Vertebrate and Invertebrate 

 life, have been similarly recorded and illustrated. 



III. — Mr. G. a. Botjlenger on Extinct Reptilia.^ 



ME. BOULENGER contributes three papers of much palfeonto- 

 logical interest to the June number of the Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society. The first deals with some fragmentary Eocene 

 Chelonian remains ; the second and third relate to taxonomic questions 

 of wide importance. 



During an examination of the reptilian fossils in the Museum of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons, Mr. Boulenger met with a skull of 

 Triomjx, apparently from the well-known Upper Eocene formation 

 of Hordwell Cliff, and, if so, proving that the species represented 

 is a typical member of the genus. The skull much, resembles 

 that of the existing T. hnrum, and it is provisionally referred to 

 T. planus (Owen), of which the shell is also closely paralleled by 

 that of the recent species just mentioned. A Sheppey fossil in the 

 same collection, described by Owen as "the lower or distal end of 

 the tympanic bone of the Crocodihis toliapicus," is shown to be the 

 proximal end of the left humerus of an Athecan Turtle, evidently 

 Eosphurgis gigas ; while of two other fossils referred by Owen to 

 the same " Crocodile" the so-called " portion of the left ramus of the 

 lower jaw" is stated to be part of a scapula of Eosphnrgis, and 

 " another portion of the right ramus of the lower jaw " truly belongs 

 to a Liassic Plesiosaurian. Incidentally it is pointed out, that no 

 species of the genus Crocodilus occurs in the Eocene, the so-called 

 C. Spenceri being referable to Diplocynodon. 



A study of the osteology of Heloderma and an attempt to determine 

 its systematic position, lead Mr. Boulenger to express his views upon 

 the classification of the order Squamata. Referring only to the 

 structure of the vertebral column and limbs the following table of 

 diagnoses is given : — 



Order Squamata. 

 A. Pectoral arch or its rudiments present. Caudal hypapophyses forming chevrons. 



Suborder I. LoUchosatiria. 15-17 cervical vertebrse. Extremities archaic, i.e. 

 approaching the Batrachian type. 



1 " On Some Chelonian Remains preserved in the Museum of the Royal College 

 of Surgeons," Proc. Zool. Soc. 1891, pp. 4-8, figs. 1-6. 



"Notes on the Osteology of Helodtrma horrldum and H. suspecttim, with Remarks 

 on the Systematic Position of the Helodermatidse and on the Vertebrae of the 

 Lacertilia," ibid. pp. 109-118, figs. 1-6. 



' ' On British Remains of Homososaurns, with Remarks on the Classification of 

 the Rhynchocephalia," ibid. pp. 167-172, figs. 1, 2. 



